Are Your Ash Trees Ready To Fight Off The Emerald Ash Borer?

If you have ash trees on your property, leaving them untreated is a death sentence. Emerald ash borers (EAB) have established a beachhead in our area and won’t be satisfied until they have devoured every ash tree.

Your ash trees can be saved. If your trees are not yet infested, we can apply a preventive treatment. If they are infested, we can apply a treatment to kill this insidious pest if a sufficient amount of the tree is still living. The same material is used in both instances. The biggest difference is that we only have to make an application every two years as a preventive. We have to apply every year to rid your tree of this pest.

This isn’t a do-it-yourself task. All applications have to be made systemically (i.e. injected directly into the tree or applied as a soil drench around the base of the tree). Very few products are labeled for EAB, and only one is labeled for consumer use. The rest are restricted to state licensed pesticide applicators. In its over the counter formulation, the product labeled for consumer use is not strong enough to be effective. I’ve used them all and found that only one product is really effective, so this is the one we use.

Right now, the EAB larvae are still active inside infested trees. Soon they will pupate and morph into small, metallic green adults. The adults will chew a D-shaped exit holes and crawl out of the tree. They will then mate. When the female is ready to deposit her eggs, she will chew an indentation into the bark of an ash tree and deposit one egg in each indentation. When the larva hatches, it begins chewing into the tree and, for the better part of a year, spends its time devouring the tree’s food as is travels through the phloem just beneath the bark.

From a purely financial perspective, it costs more to remove and replace a mature ash tree than to treat for EAB for a decade or two. Spring is the best time to protect your ash trees against the emerald ash borer, so call now to schedule an appointment. One of our tree health professionals will inspect your tree to be sure its chance of survival is sufficient to warrant treatment. We perform a complete health check for such things as other insects and diseases, root problems, decay, weak limbs and any hazards. From this prognosis, you can make an informed decision on whether to treat or not.